R3 4.2 February 5, 2026 Students with ADHD Perform Better When They Can Take Notes On Devices – With Some Important Cautions

Complex interactions between mode of notetaking, type of device, and specific constellations of attention symptoms cast even more doubt on one-size-fits-all note-taking policies

This issue’s focus article revisits a question that sparked a surprising amount of discussion a few years back: the benefits of handwritten versus typed notes. On the face of it, there are upsides to both. Handwritten notes reduce distraction and introduce a kind of desirable difficulty by discouraging students from trying to transcribe a lecture word for word. Typed notes offer accessibility, speed, and flexible, searchable formatting. Overall, though, the research to date does not support a simple story in which handwriting reliably boosts learning and laptops reliably harm it.

When typed notes do create a learning disadvantage, it seems to be unrelated to the device itself and instead to how it is used. Across studies, “mindless” transcription seems to be the culprit, as evidenced by the fairly consistent finding that as word count increases, memory for the material decreases. The encouraging implication is that the downside of typing might be reduced through better note-taking strategies that focus on capturing concepts rather than raw verbiage. It is also worth remembering that “technology” is not synonymous with “laptop.” Accordingly, some researchers have incorporated other devices such as e-writers and tablets, which bring different affordances and constraints to the note-taking endeavor.

The ins and outs of this question are interesting to theorists, but for most of us, the stakes are practical. We care because this line of research is used to justify classroom policies and in-class rules, and that is where, I suspect, the polarization comes from. Even if there were a clear-cut case that handwriting better supports learning, accessibility becomes an issue. Banning laptops can create barriers for students who, for one reason or another, struggle with pen and paper (I happen to be one of them). And we should also acknowledge that remembering more from a lecture because you took notes in a particular way is not the entire or even perhaps the main point of taking those notes - which are usually used to review and study later on.

This issue’s focus article brings another consideration into the topic of note-taking: neurodiversity. It asks whether individual differences moderate the relationship between mode of note-taking and learning, such that some modalities may be more advantageous for some people and less advantageous for others. Specifically, the authors examine whether ADHD symptoms, and in particular inattentive-type symptoms, shape the impact of note-taking via one method or another.

This is a timely article for many reasons, but one is that it dovetails with a new resource that just launched: Karen Costa’s new book, An Educator's Guide to ADHD: Designing and Teaching for Student Success. Costa has discussed the book on podcasts including Tea for Teaching and Teaching in Higher Ed, and it was also recently featured on Bryan Alexander’s always-engaging Future Trends Forum weekly webinar. It’s next up in my reading queue and, from what I’ve seen so far, will go a long way toward dispelling myths and building understanding of this key issue in inclusive teaching.

Citation:

Shimko, G. A., Fyfe, E. R., & James, K. H. (2025). A classroom study on notetaking modalities and inattentive attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 39:e70105.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.70105

Paywall or Open:

Open

Summary:

Students enrolled in an Introductory Psychology course took notes using their usual method (laptop, paper, or tablet) during a lecture, then completed an unannounced quiz two days later. Students also completed a validated questionnaire-style measure of ADHD that distinguishes inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms. Quiz performance revealed an interaction between inattentive symptoms and note-taking modality: as inattentive symptoms increased, performance improved for students who took notes using laptops or tablets, while performance decreased for students who took notes by hand. The authors also found that students who took handwritten notes reported less distraction than laptop users.

Research Questions:

• Does note-taking modality predict learning from a lecture, and does this relationship depend on ADHD symptoms?

• Do students’ ADHD symptom levels predict which note-taking modality they choose (laptop, handwritten, tablet)?

• Do students report different levels of in-class distraction depending on note-taking modality?

Sample:

248 undergraduate students enrolled in an in-person introductory psychology course at a Midwestern university participated. The final data set excluded students who did not consent to having their data used, who missed class on the day of the lecture on which data were gathered, who did not turn in a pre-assessment, who did not take notes, or who reported that they had studied the material in advance of the unannounced quiz, for a final N of 137.

Method/Design:

Participants used their self-selected note-taking modality during a standard lecture supported by PowerPoint slides (posted in advanced on the LMS) that they had the option of downloading and annotating. Participants self-reported their note-taking modality (laptop, handwritten, or tablet) and whether they were distracted during lecture. They also completed the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale, which had separate sub-scales assessing inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptom dimensions. Learning was measured with an unannounced 10-item multiple-choice quiz administered two days after the lecture.

Key Findings:

• There was an interaction between inattentive symptoms and note-taking modality, such that as inattentive symptoms increased, quiz performance improved for students using tablets and laptops. As inattentive symptoms increased, quiz performance decreased for students taking handwritten notes. This pattern was specific to inattentive symptoms; no overall association was found for total ADHD symptom scores. For students with higher inattentive symptoms, the best performance was associated with tablet note-taking, relative to other modalities.

• Most students used laptops, with smaller groups using handwritten notes or tablets.

• Students using handwritten notes reported less distraction than laptop users.

• ADHD symptoms did not predict which modality students chose.

Choice Quote from the Article:

Our findings revealed that encoding gains related to chosen notetaking modalities depended on students’ inattentive ADHD symptoms, but not total ADHD symptoms. Specifically, as ADHD-I symptoms increased, learning from the lecture increased for individuals who took notes via laptop and tablets, while the effectiveness of handwritten notes decreased.

Why it Matters:

The findings tie back to something that I’ve advocated for quite a bit lately: we need to look harder at individual differences in applied cognitive and learning sciences research. Among other things, the lack of meaningful frameworks for tailoring instruction to distinct cognitive profiles helps fuel the nearly-unkillable myth of learning styles. If instructors are hungry for a way to personalize, and the research does not offer usable guidance about when and for whom common learning strategies work best, this creates fertile ground for pseudoscience to creep in.

Beyond the conclusion that individual differences matter, what message does this study give to instructors? The complexity of these findings is what makes them valuable, but it also makes application tricky. Practically speaking, we cannot cognitively profile an entire class and then issue personalized note-taking prescriptions. But we can take a further step away from hard-line rules and superficial messaging, especially with respect to the idea that handwritten note taking is categorically superior and therefore a defensible basis for blanket no-laptop policies. There may be other reasons an instructor might limit devices, but the impacts of note-taking methods aren’t a clear-cut reason in themselves. This fact is doubly important given the study’s implication that for some students, writing on paper may be actively counterproductive to learning. The study also suggests that even in the absence of formal accommodation, a substantial number of students could benefit from the ability to use a laptop or tablet in class.

Another notable takeaway from the article is that even more than ADHD itself, the exact form of experienced symptoms matters, with the inattentive category (ADHD-I) driving the disadvantage they found for handwritten notes. Here’s where the interpretation does get even more challenging, however. The authors float a few possible explanations without definitively settling on one. First is the difficulty with fine-motor coordination that goes along with ADHD-I. There’s also the possibility that tablet note-taking discourages high-speed transcription, while still allowing for strategies like annotating slides and diagrams. Only more research can really say for sure.

Regardless of the explanation we’d settle on, it does emphasize the validity of individual, subjective experiences of attention challenges, and that these experiences might matter more than official diagnoses when it comes to choosing strategies. Anyone can take the measure used in this research - the Adult ADHD Self Report Rating Scale, or ASRS - and I wonder if doing so (mindfully, and with a strong sense of the limitations) could be a useful tool for students or anyone else looking to optimize the ways they manage their own learning.

The article also reinforces something that will surprise no one: greater self-reported distraction among students using laptops to take notes. Even if the conclusion feels obvious, it is perhaps still useful to have some hard evidence in hand. Among other things, it could support a more transparent conversation with students about attention, temptation, and making the most of class time (which does belong to them, after all).

Most Relevant For:

Faculty, especially those teaching larger survey courses where note-taking is emphasized; instructional designers; disability and accessibility support staff

Limitations, Caveats, and Nagging Questions:

Students self-selected their note-taking modality as part of an actual ongoing class; this naturalistic, correlational design is well suited to capturing realistic classroom behavior, but it limits conclusions about cause and effect. Yet at some points, there’s phrasing of the “laptops lead to higher scores for students with inattentive symptoms” sort. The results are consistent with that interpretation, but technically the design cannot fully rule out third-variable explanations or confounds involving what type of student is most likely to select different modes of note-taking.

That said, it is not immediately obvious what alternative explanation would neatly reproduce the observed interaction pattern, especially because ADHD symptoms did not predict modality choice. Still, this study cries out for follow-up work with random assignment to modality, ideally alongside more direct measures of note quality and note-taking behavior. That would allow stronger conclusions about whether modality itself is producing different outcomes for different subgroups of students.

The tablet finding opens a particularly interesting set of questions, and it points us away from “technology versus no technology” as the only meaningful distinction. The type of technology, and its specific affordances, may matter just as much as paper versus screen. The authors raise the possibility that stylus-based writing slows students down and keeps them more engaged with the lecture, even though tablets are, in principle, capable of the same off-task temptations as laptops. I also wonder whether perceived privacy might come into play. A flat tablet may feel more publicly visible to peers and (especially) instructors than an upright laptop screen, which could nudge users away from off-topic use. Screen size and ease of multitasking may also differ. Regardless of the mechanism, the broader point is useful: not all digital note-taking should be lumped together.

Another major question that flows from that tablet finding is one the authors raise about note-taking methods. Some students may be handwriting notes from scratch with a stylus and others may be annotating lecture slides directly (a possibility that the authors do discuss). If a meaningful portion of students are annotating slides, that could be another reason tablets look like a best-of-both-worlds solution – supportive of the more deliberate process of handwriting, less supportive of off-task use, and also able to incorporate digital materials like slides from the outset. But without more detailed data on what students actually did on their devices, that remains speculative.

Finally, the authors emphasize limitations having to do with whose data was complete enough to end up in the final analysis. ADHD symptom severity predicted being dropped from the data set, with higher symptoms associated with a greater likelihood of missing class or not completing study components. Thus, students with higher symptoms were under-represented in the final sample. I’m not sure I agree with the authors that this issue strongly limits generalizability of the findings, although it is true that this sub-group of students might perform in particular ways that aren’t picked up within this study design.

If you liked this article, you might also appreciate:

Cohen, D., Kim, E., Tan, J., Winkelmes, M., & Fernandez, C. (2013). A note-restructuring intervention increases students’ exam scores. Teaching Sociology, 41(3), 299–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2013.793168

Fanguy, M. (2025). Beyond traditional note-taking: Comparing the effects of collaboratively-generated versus instructor-provided notes on recall and writing performance. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 41(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.9446

Miller, M.D. (2022). Remembering and forgetting in the age of technology: Teaching, learning, and the science of memory in a wired world. West Virginia University Press.

Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. A. (2019). How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for note-taking? A replication and extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014). Educational Psychology Review, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09468-2

Mueller, P.A. & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159–1168. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581

Ragan, E. D., Jennings, S. R., Massey, J. D., & Doolittle, P. E. (2014). Unregulated use of laptops over time in large lecture classes. Computers and Education, 78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.05.002

File under: neurodiversity, note-taking, laptops in class, classroom technology policies, ADHD, attention